The most important part of the header is the info pointer, which points to the info table for the closure. In the default build, this is all the header contains, so a header is normally just one word. In other builds, the header may contain extra information: eg. in a profiling build it also contains information about who built the closure.

Most of the runtime is insensitive to the size of StgHeader;
that is, we are careful not to hardcode the offset to the payload
anywhere, instead we use C struct indexing or sizeof(StgHeader).
This makes it easy to extend StgHeader with new fields if we
need to.

The compiler also needs to know the layout of heap objects, and the way this information is plumbed into the compiler from the C headers in the runtime is described here: Commentary/Compiler/CodeGen.

Info Tables

The info table contains all the information that the runtime needs to know about the closure. The layout of info tables is defined by StgInfoTable in includes/rts/storage/InfoTables.h. The basic info table layout looks like this:

The layout field describes the layout of the payload for the garbage collector, and is described in more
detail in Types of Payload Layout below.

The entry code for the closure is usually the code that will evaluate the closure. There is one exception:
for functions, the entry code will apply the function to the arguments given in registers or on the stack, according
to the calling convention. The entry code assumes all the arguments are present - to apply a function to fewer arguments
or to apply an unknown function, the generic apply functions must
be used.

Some types of object add more fields to the end of the info table, notably functions, return addresses, and thunks.

Space in info tables is a premium: adding a word to the standard info table structure increases binary sizes by 5-10%.

TABLES_NEXT_TO_CODE

Note that the info table is followed immediately by the entry code, rather than the code being at the end of an indirect pointer. This both reduces the size of the info table and eliminates one indirection when jumping to the entry code; however, arranging to generate code like this presents some difficulties when compiling via C, see Commentary/EvilMangler.

GHC can generate code that uses the indirect pointer instead; the TABLES_NEXT_TO_CODE turns on the optimised layout. Generally TABLES_NEXT_TO_CODE is turned off when compiling unregisterised.

When TABLES_NEXT_TO_CODE is off, info tables get another field, entry, which points to the entry code. In a generated object file, each symbol X_info representing an info table will have an associated symbol X_entry pointing to the entry code (in TABLES_NEXT_TO_CODE, the entry symbol is omitted to keep the size of symbol tables down).

Types of Payload Layout

The GC needs to know two things about the payload of a heap object: how many words it contains, and which of those words are pointers. There are two basic kinds of layout for the payload: pointers-first and bitmap. Which of these kinds of layout is being used is a property of the closure type, so the GC first checks the closure type to determine how to interpret the layout field of the info table.

Pointers-first layout

The payload consists of zero or more pointers followed by zero or more non-pointers.
This is the most common layout: constructors, functions and thunks use this layout. The layout field contains
two half-word-sized fields:

Number of pointers

Number of non-pointers

Bitmap layout

The payload consists of a mixture of pointers and non-pointers, described by a bitmap. There are two kinds of bitmap:

Small bitmaps. A small bitmap fits into a single word (the layout word of the info table), and looks like this:

Size (bits 0-4)

Bitmap (bits 5-31)

(for a 64-bit word size, the size is given 6 bits instead of 5).

The size field gives the size of the payload, and each bit of the bitmap is 1 if the corresponding word of payload contains a pointer to a live object.

Large bitmaps. If the size of the stack frame is larger than the 27 words that a small bitmap can describe, then the fallback mechanism is the large bitmap. A large bitmap is a separate structure, containing a single word size and a multi-word bitmap: see StgLargeBitmap in includes/rts/storage/InfoTables.h.

Dynamic vs. Static objects

Objects fall into two categories:

dynamic objects reside in the heap, and may be moved by the garbage collector.

static objects reside in the compiled object code. They are never moved, because pointers to such objects are
scattered through the object code, and only the linker knows where.

To find out whether a particular object is dynamic or static, use the HEAP_ALLOCED() macro, from rts/sm/MBlock.h. This macro works by consulting a bitmap (or structured bitmap) that tells for each megablock of memory whether it is part of the dynamic heap or not.

Dynamic objects

Dynamic objects have a minimum size, because every object must be big
enough to be overwritten by a
forwarding pointer (Forwarding Pointers) during GC.
The minimum size of the payload is given by MIN_PAYLOAD_SIZE in includes/rts/Constants.h.

Static objects

Static objects have an additional field, called the static link
field. The static link field is used by the GC to link all the
static objects in a list, and so that it can tell whether it has
visited a particular static object or not - the GC needs to traverse
all the static objects in order to garbage collect CAFs.

The static link field resides after the normal payload, so that the
static variant of an object has compatible layout with the dynamic
variant. To access the static link field of a closure, use the
STATIC_LINK() macro from includes/rts/storage/ClosureMacros.h.

Types of object

Data Constructors

All data constructors have pointers-first layout:

Header

Pointers...

Non-pointers...

Data constructor closure types:

CONSTR: a vanilla, dynamically allocated constructor

CONSTR_p_n: a constructor whose layout is encoded in the closure type (eg. CONSTR_1_0 has one pointer
and zero non-pointers. Having these closure types speeds up GC a little for common layouts.

CONSTR_STATIC: a statically allocated constructor.

CONSTR_NOCAF_STATIC: TODO Needs documentation

The entry code for a constructor returns immediately to the topmost stack frame, because the data constructor is already in WHNF. The return convention may be vectored or non-vectored, depending on the type (see Commentary/Rts/HaskellExecution/CallingConvention).

Function Closures

A function closure represents a Haskell function. For example:

f = \x -> let g = \y -> x + y
in g x

Here, f would be represented by a static function closure (see below), and g a dynamic function closure. Every function in the Haskell program generates a new info table and entry code, and top-level functions additionally generate a static closure.
All function closures have pointers-first layout:

Header

Pointers...

Non-pointers...

The payload of the function closure contains the free variables of the function: in the example above, a closure for g would have a payload containing a pointer to x.

Function closure types:

FUN: a vanilla, dynamically allocated function

FUN_p_n: same, specialised for layout (see constructors above)

FUN_STATIC: a static (top-level) function closure

Symbols related to a function f:

f_info: f's info table and code

f_closure: f's static closure, if f is a top-level function.
The static closure has no payload, because there are no free
variables of a top-level function. It does have a static link
field, though.

Thunks

A thunk represents an expression that is not obviously in head normal
form. For example, consider the following top-level definitions:

range = between 1 10
f = \x -> let ys = take x range
in sum ys

Here the right-hand sides of range and ys are both thunks;
the former is static while the latter is dynamic.

Thunks have pointers-first layout:

Header

Pointers...

Non-pointers...

As for function closures, the payload contains the free variables of
the expression. A thunk differs from a function closure in that it
can be updated.

THUNK_STATIC: a static thunk is also known as a constant
applicative form, or CAF. Static thunks are overwritten with
static indirections (IND_STATIC).

The only label associated with a thunk is its info table:

f_info is f's info table.

Selector thunks

THUNK_SELECTOR is a (dynamically allocated) thunk whose entry
code performs a simple selection operation from a data constructor
drawn from a single-constructor type. For example, the thunk

x = case y of (a,b) -> a

is a selector thunk. A selector thunk is laid out like this:

Header

Selectee pointer

The layout word contains the byte offset of the desired word in the
selectee. Note that this is different from all other thunks.

The garbage collector "peeks" at the selectee's tag (in its info
table). If it is evaluated, then it goes ahead and does the
selection, and then behaves just as if the selector thunk was an
indirection to the selected field. If it is not evaluated, it
treats the selector thunk like any other thunk of that shape.

There is a fixed set of pre-compiled selector thunks built into the
RTS, representing offsets from 0 to MAX_SPEC_SELECTOR_THUNK,
see rts/StgStdThunks.cmm.
The info tables are labelled __sel_n_upd_info where n is the
offset. Non-updating versions are also built in, with info tables
labelled _sel_n_noupd_info.

These thunks exist in order to prevent a space leak. For example, if y is a thunk that has been evaluated, and y is unreachable, but x is reachable, the risk is that x keeps both the a and b components of y live. By making the selector thunk a special case, we make it possible to reclaim the memory associated with b. (The situation is further complicated when selector thunks point to other selector thunks; the garbage collector sees all, knows all.)

Partial applications

Partial applications are tricky beasts.

A partial application, closure type PAP, represents a function
applied to too few arguments. Partial applications are only built by
the generic apply functions in AutoApply.cmm.

Header

Arity

No. of words

Function closure

Payload...

Where:

Arity is the arity of the PAP. For example, a function with
arity 3 applied to 1 argument would leave a PAP with arity 2.

No. of words refers to the size of the payload in words.

Function closure is the function to which the arguments are
applied. Note that this is always a pointer to one of the
FUN family, never a PAP. If a PAP is applied
to more arguments to give a new PAP, the arguments from
the original PAP are copied to the new one.

The payload is the sequence of arguments already applied to
this function. The pointerhood of these words are described
by the function's bitmap (see scavenge_PAP_payload() in
rts/sm/GC.c for an example of traversing a PAP).

There is just one standard form of PAP. There is just one info table
too, called stg_PAP_info. A PAP should never be entered, so its
entry code causes a failure. PAPs are applied by the generic apply
functions in AutoApply.cmm.

Generic application

An AP object is very similar to a PAP, and has identical layout:

Header

Arity

No. of words

Function closure

Payload...

The difference is that an AP is not necessarily in WHNF. It is
a thunk that represents the application of the specified function to
the given arguments.

The arity field is always zero (it wouldn't help to omit this field,
because it is only half a word anyway).

AP closures are used mostly by the byte-code interpreter, so that it only needs a single form of thunk object. Interpreted thunks are always represented by the application of a BCO to its free variables.

Stack application

An AP_STACK is a special kind of object:

Header

Size

Closure

Payload...

It represents computation of a thunk that was suspended midway through evaluation. In order to continue the computation, copy the payload onto the stack (the payload was originally the stack of the suspended computation), and enter the closure.

Since the payload is a chunk of stack, the GC can use its normal stack-walking code to traverse it.

Indirections

Indirection closures just point to other closures. They are introduced
when a thunk is updated to point to its value. The entry code for all
indirections simply enters the closure it points to.

The basic layout of an indirection is simply

Header

Target closure

There are several variants of indirection:

IND: is the vanilla, dynamically-allocated indirection.
It is removed by the garbage collector. An IND only exists in the youngest generation.
The update code (stg_upd_frame_info and friends) checks whether the updatee is in the youngest
generation before deciding which kind of indirection to use.

IND_OLDGEN: an old generation indirection. Same layout as IND. This used to have
different layout when the old-generation mutable list was threaded through the objects, but now
IND_OLDGEN is exactly the same as IND (and there's no good reason to have it at all, I think).

IND_PERM: sometimes we don't want an indirection to be removed by the GC, so we use IND_PERM instead.
The profiler is one user of this closure type; cost-center semantics requires that we keep track of the
cost center in an indirection, so we can't eliminate the indirection.

IND_OLDGEN_PERM: same as above, but for the old generation.

IND_STATIC: a static indirection, arises when we update a THUNK_STATIC. A new IND_STATIC
is placed on the mutable list when it is created (see newCaf() in rts/sm/Storage.c).

Byte-code objects

Black holes

Arrays

MVars

MVar

Weak pointers

Weak

Stable Names

STABLE_NAME

Thread State Objects

Closure type TSO is a Thread State Object. It represents the complete state of a thread, including its stack.

TSOs are ordinary objects that live in the heap, so we can use the existing allocation and garbage collection machinery to manage them. This gives us one important benefit: the garbage collector can detect when a blocked thread is unreachable, and hence can never become runnable again. When this happens, we can notify the thread by sending it the BlockedIndefinitely exception.

GHC keeps stacks contiguous, there are no "stack chunk" objects. This is simpler, but means that when growing a stack we have to copy the old contents to a larger area (see threadStackOverflow() in rts/Schedule.c).

The TSO structure contains several fields. For full details see includes/rts/storage/TSO.h. Some of the more important fields are:

link: field for linking TSOs together in a list. For example, the threads blocked on an MVar are kept in
a queue threaded through the link field of each TSO.

global_link: links all TSOs together; the head of this list is all_threads in rts/Schedule.c.

what_next: how to resume execution of this thread. The valid values are:

ThreadRunGhc: continue by returning to the top stack frame.

ThreadInterpret: continue by interpreting the BCO on top of the stack.

ThreadKilled: this thread has received an exception which was not caught.

ThreadRelocated: this thread ran out of stack and has been relocated to a larger TSO; the link field points
to its new location.

ThreadComplete: this thread has finished and can be garbage collected when it is unreachable.

why_blocked: for a blocked thread, indicates why the thread is blocked. See includes/rts/Constants.h for
the list of possible values.

block_info: for a blocked thread, gives more information about the reason for blockage, eg. when blocked on an